Eric du Toithttp://www.ericdutoit.com
StuffSun, 12 Mar 2017 18:02:17 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8Troy Bilt Bronco TB70SS doesn’t runhttp://www.ericdutoit.com/2015/06/troy-bilt-bronco-tb70ss-doesnt-run/
http://www.ericdutoit.com/2015/06/troy-bilt-bronco-tb70ss-doesnt-run/#respondSun, 28 Jun 2015 20:32:46 +0000http://www.ericdutoit.com/?p=170My Troy Bilt gas powered string trimmer decided to quit on me this year. I’ve only had it for 8+ years so I wondered why it picked this year to want attention. 8 years is a long time in cheap string trimmer years so here are a few things I did to help it get […]

]]>My Troy Bilt gas powered string trimmer decided to quit on me this year. I’ve only had it for 8+ years so I wondered why it picked this year to want attention. 8 years is a long time in cheap string trimmer years so here are a few things I did to help it get this far:

Only use non-ethanol fuel. I’m fortunate that the closest gas station to my house has conventional gas – Commerce and 51 in Hernando.

Change the spark plug at least every 2 years

Do not keep mixed fuel longer than 8 months (much shorter if you use ethanol)

Empty the gas tank after you finish using it – back into the gas can

That is really all I did and my trimmer lasted 8+ years before it started to not run. It started to not run well unless I had the choke in position #2, and after a few weeks of that, it stopped running any time I’d give it more than a light throttle. I had several options without doing any work and I have an edger attachment for the Troy-Bilt trimmers so I’d need to either replace with a Troy-Bilt or get an edger attachment :

The first option was to buy a new string trimmer. If you check the reviews at Amazon.com on the Troy-Bilt trimmers – same ones they have at Lowes’ – they are horrible. $150 – $200 for a trimmer that looks better than the one I have (bigger head, better grip, etc..) but from the reviews, I’d be lucky if I got 2 years out of them. I could have purchased an Echo trimmer at Home Depot for $300+tax which includes an edger attachment.

The second option was to take it to the small engines shop and have them rebuilt the carburetor (what I thought was wrong) for $120 and it would take 3 weeks due to busy season.

I decided to tinker with it and do some cheap maintenance things to see if I could make it work. First, I ran some ‘mechanic in a bottle’ which the small engine shop suggested. This didn’t help much at all (you’ll see why later). The second thing I did was take the carburetor off, open it up, and clean it out with carburetor cleaner. A phillips and flat screwdriver is all you need for this. The carb wasn’t dirty or gunky and didn’t have any varnish on it – I believe this is partly because I haven’t ever run ethanol through it.

I was about to quit and buy a new trimmer, but I searched on my problem and found that it may be a result of a High/Low fuel mix. From what I understand, the all powerful EPA has dictated that these new carburetors cannot be adjustable by the consumer and small engine shops are fined heavily if they sell a tool to make the adjustments. Several videos and blogs suggested using a Dremel tool to notch out some screw slots, but I don’t have one and I’m not crazy about the potential for sparks near a gas engine – so I used a hacksaw.

There are two small fuel adjustment needles on the top of the carburetor, one for the high RPM fuel mix, one for the low RPM full mix (look for H and L stamped on the carb – in my case, the one furthest from the trimmer body is the Low). Once I had the notches cut, I started the trimmer, adjusted the idle screw so that it would run, and then backed off the “H” needle 1/2 turn while testing the throttle. Once I could give it full throttle without the trimmer dying, I slowly backed out the H needle until the trimmer sounded like it was at full power. This really works and saved me some $. I did replace all the fuel lines and the fuel filter and I’ll probably replace the primer bulb – although I don’t think it is necessary.

$6 for fuel lines & fuel filter at any small engine shop (get 2′)

$2 spark plug

$2 for a can of carb cleaner (probably not necessary for me)

$2 for an air filter

A hack saw, 20 minutes of driving, 20 minutes of actual work, 1-2 hours of trial and error before I figured out the problem.

$280+ saved over buying a reputable new trimmer

I only have ~1/2 acre so this trimmer is powerful enough and works very well to get the job done fast. I hope I’ve saved someone 1-2 hours of trial and error.

]]>http://www.ericdutoit.com/2015/06/troy-bilt-bronco-tb70ss-doesnt-run/feed/0Heirloom Tomato and Pepper Seedlings sprouted!http://www.ericdutoit.com/2014/02/heirloom-tomato-pepper-seedlings-sprouted/
http://www.ericdutoit.com/2014/02/heirloom-tomato-pepper-seedlings-sprouted/#commentsTue, 11 Feb 2014 23:50:07 +0000http://www.ericdutoit.com/?p=141I planted my tomato seedlings on January 15th just before we went skiing and left them under light. I used something similar to this Hydrofarm Germination Station with Heat Mat to keep the soil mix warm and moist. The soil mix I used was one from Burpee that I found at Lowes called “Organic Seed […]

]]>I planted my tomato seedlings on January 15th just before we went skiing and left them under light. I used something similar to this Hydrofarm Germination Station with Heat Mat to keep the soil mix warm and moist. The soil mix I used was one from Burpee that I found at Lowes called “Organic Seed Starting Mix”. I mixed in a bit of perlite and moistened the mix before planting my seeds and covering the tray with the plastic dome cover. We were gone for 10 days and had someone stop by to check the moisture of the soil. The tray comes with a pad which lines the bottom and soaks up the water for slower release so she only had to add about 1L of water to the tray over the 10 days we were gone.

As soon as we returned home, I was pleased to see almost everything had sprouted. On February 2nd, I potted up the tomato seedlings into 4″ round pots using a fresh mix of starter soil and perlite. I did the usual method of planting them up to the bottom of the cotyledon leaves and then stuck them in the cold upstairs bedroom. I was attempting to give them the “cold treatment”, however after I did some additional reading, the cold treatment for tomatoes is supposed to be just as soon as the cotyledon leaves appear and before the first real set of leaves show up. Next year I will be more deliberate in my planting and I will give them a 10 – 15 day cold treatment before the first leaves appear. They got about 5 days of cold treatment before I realized my mistake and just opened the vents and door to my upstairs growing room. They’ll enjoy some nicer warm weather until they make it into the garden next month.

We decided to pot up our pepper plants on February 9th. I used the same organic starter mix, perlite, and a very small amount of organic bone meal. I have two trays of 18 – 3″ square pots for my peppers and I used about 2Tbsp bone meal for each tray. These plants should continue to grow well until they make it out to the garden early to mid April.

Since I have been very stingy with pictures in the past, I hope you will enjoy the pictures of my potted up plants.

]]>I’ve been so busy lately I haven’t had time to post any updates – I’ve barely had time to keep the garden going. So far this year, we’ve added 5 blueberry plants, 3 grape vines, 2 blackberry patches, 2 raspberry patches, strawberry agro towers, and a strawberry patch.

The mild weather allowed me to get a lot in very early this year. I have 3 tomatoes – two of which I started from seed and a Park’s Whopper I bought from the big-box store. It’s mid June but the Park’s Whopper already has 40 fruit set and is 5 foot up the tomato tower – remember that in our type garden, one tomato plant goes in the middle of a 3′ diameter 10′ tall cage. The Park’s Whopper was about 6″ tall when I put it in the ground on April 6th so it’s been growing a little over 2 months. The other two tomatoes I’m growing are ones I started from seed around March 1st and were about 3″ tall when I put them in the ground early April. To protect the tomatoes from frost and encourage them to get started, I prepped the bed by putting down Better Reds Plastic Mulch and a Wall O Water tomato tent. I put the red wall o water over top of the plastic mulch squares to get the medium warmer and ready for the tomatoes.

The other two tomato varieties I’m growing are a Beef Steak heirloom and a Gold Medal Tomato which is supposed to be slightly less acidic and ripen yellow with red streaks up the sides of the fruit.

I know this post is worthless without pictures so if I get some spare time next week, I’ll put some pictures up.

]]>http://www.ericdutoit.com/2013/06/2013-organic-gardening-is-well-under-way/feed/0Why I will never buy another Samsung TV (and why I will take this one back if I can)http://www.ericdutoit.com/2013/01/samsung-not-so-smarthub/
http://www.ericdutoit.com/2013/01/samsung-not-so-smarthub/#commentsSat, 26 Jan 2013 07:02:36 +0000http://www.ericdutoit.com/?p=97My post isn’t in line with the focus of this blog, but I had to say something about my recent experience with Samsung TVs and help inform someone thinking about purchasing a new Samsung TV. We gave our 6 year old 47″ Vizio to my mom and I picked up a Samsung UN55ES6150F 55″ TV at […]

]]>My post isn’t in line with the focus of this blog, but I had to say something about my recent experience with Samsung TVs and help inform someone thinking about purchasing a new Samsung TV. We gave our 6 year old 47″ Vizio to my mom and I picked up a Samsung UN55ES6150F 55″ TV at Costco.

The Good

The TV is really a nice looking piece of electronics. The picture is much sharper and the color more vibrant than our old Vizio. The bezel is barely 1″ thick all the way around – most new LED TVs have a thin bezel so it’s not a huge selling feature, but from the 47″ Vizio with (what seemed to be) a 3″ bezel, this is nice.

The TV is very thin.. very. I know most new TVs have most of these features, but built in wi-fi and a “SmartHub” (which we find out later isn’t so smart) are nice.

The bad

Ugh.. tonight I really wish I hadn’t bought this TV, but more on that later… I think that they were napping in the engineering department the day they drew this one up.

Flush mounting:

When you have a super thin TV, what I want to do with it is mount is as close to the wall as I possibly can.. because.. it’s so thin. So I bought a new wall mount from Amazon : Loctek PSW005LF The problem is.. I CAN’T! Thank you engineering department. In order to make the TV somewhat work with this adapter, a trip to Lowe’s to pick up a stack of washers and some longer bolts was necessary. The wall mount is 0.6″ from the wall, but I had to add an extra 0.8″ to make it work.. why ?

Power connection : The connection for the power is flush mounted on the back of the television. The part of the cord that plugs into the back of the TV is at a right angle, but it’s a wide right angle. Even with my stack of washers, I needed to hammer in an indention into the sheet rock just for the power cord. It’s a proprietary connector so I couldn’t find an aftermarket right angle plug that would solve this problem. Great thinking guys..

RCA / Composite plugs : All of these are also flush mounted to the back of the TV – thank you Amazon for offering a 10-pack of RCA right angle plugs. Without my washers, even the right angle plugs wouldn’t clear.

1/8″ audio out : Yep.. another flush mount to the back of the TV.

HDMI. Of all the cables that needs a recessed mount, HDMI cables are the worst! In their infinite wisdom, the 2 flush mounted HDMI ports are directly above / below each other so when you do manage to find a right angle HDMI adapter, it completely covers one of the ports rendering it useless. They did put a recessed USB and HDMI connector on the TV, but why wasn’t everything recessed?

Audio Out without volume control

Any good home theater doesn’t rely on the built in TV speakers. I think I know why TVs have built in speakers – because not everyone is going to add on another $xxx for a receiver and nice(er) speakers. For those of us that have or add on a home theater, it sure is nice to control the volume from the TV – or at the least ‘mute’ the TV from the TV remote. In my case, I located the receiver in a closet that requires a remote extender. As a side note, why 1/8″ audio out and not RCA jacks?

Eco Sensor

Whoever thought including a feature like this with no easy way of turning it off.. stupid. Really stupid. I think their goal is to save energy by reducing the brightness of the TV based on the ambient light sensor. This may work well in very controlled environments, but in real world experience.. it sucks. It is bad enough that there are google pages full of complaints all asking the same question “how do I permanently turn this off” with no good answer other than entering some factory maintenance menu where you can royally goof up your TV if you adjust the wrong thing. Let’s assume for a minute that Samsung isn’t trying to force me to be green – I do my part every earth day by burning 5 tires and spraying 10 cans of aerosol into the air – let’s assume they are trying to have a nice feature .. one of the problems with this feature is that it is very sensitive. Our TV is located in a decent sized living room in an open floor plan where a breakfast nook and kitchen are close. There is also a dining room that can add light into the living room. It is overly sensitive to these light sources that are not in the same room. I don’t really care that it is a feature – just give me a menu option in one place to turn it off.

Auto Brightness

I’m not sure what this ‘feature’ is, but if you have the factory brightness setting, the TV tries to dynamically adjust the brightness based on the scene. This results in something like a movie credit page being unreadable. Other dark scenes are unwatchable. There is a way to counteract this by setting the brightness above 45.

iPhone remote app

Not really worth installing and setting up, and setting up, and setting up, and setting up.. yep.. it doesn’t manage to stay connected. I suspect Samsung would blame my network or something creating, but.. they make the TV, they put out the remote app, but it’s my network that is the problem – you know.. my network that I never have any problems out of and has been rock solid for all the devices I’ve had connected to it for the past 4 years… sure guys.. try again. Pull it from the market and be done.

YouTube app

Yet another failure. Two big parts to this app – being logged into youtube and having a device paired with it – both fail. Every time you launch the app you must login again to your youtube account with arrows on a remote. You are supposed to be able to pair a device so that you can search for content on your iPhone or iPad and then have it playback on the TV. That would be very awesome if I didn’t have to pair my device every time I launch the app and sometimes while the app is running it will lose connectivity to the device. Fail. Samsung would do good to pull the YouTube connection out or spend the time and effort needed to fix it. If it’s a problem with YouTube and not the TV, send that to me and I’ll update the post, but from what I’ve seen by searching the web, it’s a Samsung problem.

SmartHub – the biggest deal breaker

I could probably deal with all the other problems mentioned above (and I had up until this point). Googling solved several of the problems – but why should the average consumer have to google just to find out how to make their TV not suck so bad? But.. SmartHub is the deal breaker.

The idea behind SmartHub doesn’t seem to be a bad one, and honestly, I really liked having some ‘apps’ on my TV so when we wanted to watch something that wasn’t off-air, I didn’t have to plug my laptop in. We’ve used Hulu and Amazon on-demand services but there are a host of other apps and services available. These are all great things and for us, we don’t need or want cable so being able to pick a few shows to watch on demand is a nice feature. I don’t have a problem with the idea or the concept itself, but the single point of failure with SmartHub is what I have a problem with. Apparently, in order for any app at all to function, Samsung’s “SmartHub” servers have to be running. uh… what?! I need to say that again… In order for any app to work, Samsung’s SmartHub servers have to be running. Whose idea was that and why are they still working at Samsung?! I did a bit of Googling while I was waiting to chat with a Samsung rep and found that Outages of SmartHub are a regular occurrence. I launched an app and after about 30 seconds of “connecting”, my TV told me ERROR_MODEL_BIND – Network not connected – check network settings. What a useless error that doesn’t even come close to reflecting what the problem is. The network was connected, I didn’t need to check network settings. Samsung’s servers were down… but wait.. I wasn’t needing to launch Samsung provided content.. so why does the app need Samsung’s servers?!??! I know that the app “installs” onto the TV so it doesn’t have to download every time from Samsung. My chat with Samsung proved this:

Jan: Hi, thanks for reaching out to Samsung Technical Support. How can I help you today?

You: I have a Samsung 55″ LED TV with Smart Hub and I receive the error_model_bind message when attempting to use any application. From what I have read on the internet, I set the time manually and I also did a ‘full reset’

Jan: Sorry for the inconvenience that you have right now with your TV having a problem on Smart Hub.

Jan: Let me see what I can do to help you on that.

Jan: As of now we are having a problem with our Smart Hub on Samsung TV.

You: right.. but that shouldn’t affect other apps like Amazon Video or Hulu

Jan: There is no problem with the TV. There is a problem with the Smart Hub.

Jan: Yes, there might be a problem with accessing the Smart Hub on your Tv.

You: so if I understand you correctly, my TV applications like Hulu and Amazon Video are dependent upon Samsung’s SmartHub servers availability in order to work correctly ?

Jan: Yes.

You: which means that my TV can be fine, my internet can be fine, Hulu can be fine, all the Backbones between me and Hulu can be fine, but if Samsung’s servers or datacenter is having problems, nothing works

You: does that sound like an intelligent design to you?

You: I’m a systems engineer for <removed> and if I designed something with a dependency like that, I’d be finding another job.

Jan: Yes, there is nothing wrong with the TV. There is just some maintenance going on Smart Hub right now.

Jan: I understand your frustration right now but Smart Hub is feature of Smart TV that has a server to be maintain.

You: nah.. I don’t believe that. I’ve engineered several apps that require high availability because of the huge customer base and brand destruction if they are down and it’s not my frustration that is the problem. I don’t believe for a second that Samsung just couldn’t engineer it to work without their servers as a single point of failure.

You: but that’s not really your problem

You: you can’t do much about that

You: I can take the TV back and find one that isn’t engineered in such a way

Jan: Thank you for understanding.

You: no problem.. I’ll be glad to pass that information on to every one I can.

I’d like to know:

Why does the app ‘install’ onto my TV if it depends on SmartHub servers in order to work right?

Why did Samsung think it was a good idea to design a system that had a complete dependency on ‘SmartHub’ servers which they can’t seem to keep running in an acceptable manner (and if you think 99.9 is acceptable for a product in 100’s of thousands of homes, we have a different definition of acceptable uptime)?

Why haven’t they fixed this in a software update?

What information is Samsung and SmartHub gathering from me every time I launch an app?

For me, I really wanted to like this TV, but after learning of its dependency on the mother ship, I think I’m done.

]]>http://www.ericdutoit.com/2012/06/finishing-off-bed-4/feed/0More planting, pruning, and caging in a square foothttp://www.ericdutoit.com/2012/06/more-planting-pruning-and-caging/
http://www.ericdutoit.com/2012/06/more-planting-pruning-and-caging/#respondFri, 08 Jun 2012 01:22:13 +0000http://www.ericdutoit.com/?p=57Tonight after I arrived at home, the girls and I went out back to see what we could put in the ground. We decided that it was time for more onions and carrots since the current crop of onions and carrots are two weeks under way. This will be our first attempt at succession planting […]

]]>Tonight after I arrived at home, the girls and I went out back to see what we could put in the ground. We decided that it was time for more onions and carrots since the current crop of onions and carrots are two weeks under way. This will be our first attempt at succession planting or stagger planting which I can already tell will take some planning to ensure we have a continual harvest without having a huge abundance. We used the planting boards to put green onions in as well as three ‘presses’ of carrots – all different varieties. What I’m calling a ‘press’ is when I take the 2′ x 1′ planting board and press it into the medium creating the spaced holes required to plant seed. We planted 6 square feet of carrots and 2 square feet of green onions which should yield about 32 green onions and 96 carrots when they mature. Maybe I’m wrong but this is incredibly efficient gardening. In one 4×4 section of bed (16 sq ft), I can plant 256 carrots. I have 16 of these 4×4 sections so I could plant approximately 4096 carrots at one time – not that I would, but you get the idea. Radishes are on 1.5″ centres so double for radishes – 8192. We also used the boards tonight to plant 18 red onions in bed 3 on four-inch centres, this should provide a nice variety of onion.

I decided to see how my tomatoes measured up after a week and here are the results : Mortgage Lifter tomato gained 4 inches at 21″ tall. Park’s Whopper gained an impressive 7 inches at 29″ tall. The Beefsteak tomato gained 5 inches at 18″ tall. My pizza peppers have sprouted and I suspect I’ll need to transplant them in a week or so as they are way to close to the tomato cage and will quickly get choked out.

]]>http://www.ericdutoit.com/2012/06/more-planting-pruning-and-caging/feed/0Planting boards – the end of row croppinghttp://www.ericdutoit.com/2012/06/planting-boards-the-end-of-row-cropping/
http://www.ericdutoit.com/2012/06/planting-boards-the-end-of-row-cropping/#respondWed, 06 Jun 2012 22:30:01 +0000http://www.ericdutoit.com/?p=30I realized this the first year we planted, but it’s just not practical to utilize row cropping in this system. Your rows are 4′ long and if you space them out by the seed packet instructions, you are wasting a lot of space. Len’s latest book includes instructions for building planting boards that are 1′ […]

]]>I realized this the first year we planted, but it’s just not practical to utilize row cropping in this system. Your rows are 4′ long and if you space them out by the seed packet instructions, you are wasting a lot of space. Len’s latest book includes instructions for building planting boards that are 1′ x 2′ with different spacing options. I took the time to build some planting boards in different spacing widths and I’ll be using them in a few days when we plant again. Another advantage to using the planting board is that you don’t have to ‘thin’ your crops. In the row method, you’d drop seeds very close and then thin them out to be 3″ apart (carrots for our example). I think that’s a waste of good seed. In our medium, very few seeds fail to germinate so if you plant it, you can be almost assured that it will grow. I can already see that when I use the planting board, I’ll be able to plant 32 carrots in a 1′ x 2′ space – radishes (at 1.5″ apart) 64 in a 1′ x 2′ space – that’s ~2048 radishes or ~1024 in one 4×16 bed – now we’re talking. Goodbye row cropping, hello densely planted vegetables.

]]>http://www.ericdutoit.com/2012/06/planting-boards-the-end-of-row-cropping/feed/0Tomato Cages / Towers and Pruninghttp://www.ericdutoit.com/2012/06/tomato-cages-towers-and-pruning/
http://www.ericdutoit.com/2012/06/tomato-cages-towers-and-pruning/#respondMon, 04 Jun 2012 07:49:19 +0000http://www.ericdutoit.com/?p=27One of the things I learned from Len’s book and video is how to support and prune tomatoes. I won’t go into major detail on the pruning but it involves leaving some of the suckers and pinching off the leaves to get more base stems going up the supports. His pruning style is similar to […]

]]>One of the things I learned from Len’s book and video is how to support and prune tomatoes. I won’t go into major detail on the pruning but it involves leaving some of the suckers and pinching off the leaves to get more base stems going up the supports. His pruning style is similar to that found in the book How to Grow World Record Tomatoes by Charles Wilber who is a Guinness Champion tomato grower. Len goes into much better detail than I can about pruning in the video you can pickup on his website.

CagesThe growing medium we are using is so loose that it is not possible to steak up a tomato in the traditional manner with a pole, wire cage, or other trellis that sticks in the ground. Besides the loose medium, the indeterminate tomatoes we are growing can get very large so whatever we do, it needs to be robust enough to support a large plant. I knew from my first year that even the 5′ tall 1.5′ diameter cages I got at the local nursery would not be enough for the potential these tomatoes could do and I saw on Len’s website his unbelievable towers. I got a friend of mine to weld together some steel supports made from 1″ square tubing – 61″ long with 31″ center connectors forming a square opening in the middle 31″ wide. This will span across the cinder block garden to support the cage we are going to put on top of it. Now, Len’s method involves making 4 supports that fit into PVC sockets, numbering each support, and then pouring concrete based on the dimensions of each support. The problem is, what happens if a support rusts out or breaks? His old method involved including an ‘eye bolt’ in each of the PVC socket holes (for the cattle panel supports I’ll discuss later or you’ll read about in his book) and running some wire through to keep the cages down in wind – that’s what I intend to do. Len has uneven cinder blocks because his garden is in the mountains so I understand the need for PVC sockets to level the supports and Max from Rocky Top Organic Vegetables improvised on Len’s design to include an outer section of square tubing and adjustable PVC socket extensions. Take a look at Max’s site for large pictures of the cage base and if you are in their area or near them, it would be worth it to use those.

On top of our base, I picked up some concrete reinforcement wire scraps from a concrete guy I know. For each cage, I used a 10′ long x 5′ high piece of wire that I overlapped by one square and hog nose ringed together to form a 3′ diameter cage. I did that a second time and attached the second cage to the top of the first cage – now I have a 9.5′ tall tomato support — what are we going to do with all the tomatoes?!

]]>http://www.ericdutoit.com/2012/06/tomato-cages-towers-and-pruning/feed/0In a picklehttp://www.ericdutoit.com/2012/06/pickles/
http://www.ericdutoit.com/2012/06/pickles/#respondSun, 03 Jun 2012 04:02:10 +0000http://www.ericdutoit.com/?p=24Bed #1 The radishes were the first to show, much to M’s delight, less than a week after she planted them. I thought this was so awesome until I read that radishes can germinate and be a small plant within 3 days. The radishes are joined by thin grass looking green onions and some small […]

The radishes were the first to show, much to M’s delight, less than a week after she planted them. I thought this was so awesome until I read that radishes can germinate and be a small plant within 3 days. The radishes are joined by thin grass looking green onions and some small carrots. The white onions we transplanted have greened up and are pointing to the sky now. I’m no expert on sweet potatoes but they do look good!

Bed #2

The mortgage lifter tomato is now 18″ tall but no suckers have showed themselves yet (more on this later). The Parks Whopper is coming strong at 22″ tall and very healthy looking. I pinched off 6 of the leaves leaving the suckers and stabilized the plant with dowel rods on the cage (more on this later). The Beefsteak tomato I had was just small. It’s early June and I don’t want to waste any time so I was at HD replacing some of the peppers that sucked and saw that they had a larger Beefsteak. This guy looks amazing – full, green, thick and healthy, so I transplanted it tonight @ 13″ tall.

A note about Home Depot in Southaven, MS and their garden center – I picked up a variety of pepper plants last week of which most of them looked very good. Within 3 days I had 6 plants wilting on me while the rest of the garden including 9 other peppers within the same 4’x4′ area were doing fine. I sent the dead peppers to Mississippi State Extension office in Hernando and they reported back that the peppers had Pythium Root Root – possibly from over watering at the store. When I returned today to give it another shot, the peppers and tomatoes looked much better.

Bed #3

We picked up some pickling cucumbers , okra, and melons at Dan West in Memphis which made their way into bed #3 tonight. The first few years, we grew all salad cucumbers. What we found out is that even with giving away salad cucumbers to family and friends, we always had too many that ended up in the trash. This year I planted one salad cucumber and three pickling cucumbers. I’m going to make an early year prediction – we’ll have way to many pickling cucumbers that will make their way into the compost pile.

There is nothing wrong with having an abundance, but I never had a ComposTumbler before so anything I didn’t use went into the trash.

]]>http://www.ericdutoit.com/2012/06/pickles/feed/0Sweet potatoes, peppers, and tomatoshttp://www.ericdutoit.com/2012/05/sweet-potatoes-peppers-and-tomatos/
http://www.ericdutoit.com/2012/05/sweet-potatoes-peppers-and-tomatos/#respondFri, 25 May 2012 03:14:06 +0000http://www.ericdutoit.com/?p=16Bed #1 We put down some white onions from bulb tonight as well as some sweet potatoes. I know you can get sweet potatoes fairly cheap at the store, but I really want to taste an organic grown sweet potato from my garden. Bed #2 Along with the onions and potatoes, I picked up a Mortgage […]

We put down some white onions from bulb tonight as well as some sweet potatoes. I know you can get sweet potatoes fairly cheap at the store, but I really want to taste an organic grown sweet potato from my garden.

Bed #2

Along with the onions and potatoes, I picked up a Mortgage Lifter tomato from C&C gardens in Hernando, a Park’s Whopper tomato, and a German Johnson Tomato, and about 16 pepper plants from Home Depot. Some of the peppers don’t look so hot, but everything else is looking good so I transplanted them into the bed. We also planted some ‘pizza peppers’ from seed in this bed – we’ll see how they do but I don’t have any expectations.